Trump Administration to Refund $100 Billion in Illegal Tariffs

According to a document filed with the U.S. Court of International Trade, the Trump administration has refunded about $100 billion in tariffs it collected before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled them illegal.

The total represents approximately 60% of the $166 billion in import duties collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which the Supreme Court invalidated in February, requiring the government to reimburse the companies that had paid them.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) told the Court of International Trade that it has already forwarded the certified refunds to the U.S. Treasury Department for disbursement. To manage the process, CBP launched the CAPE system in late April. As of July 31, importers and customs brokers had submitted 252,496 refund claims covering more than 25 million import entries. The agency has accepted nearly $128.7 billion in potential refunds for processing.

The reimbursement process is still ongoing. More than 330,000 importers paid the invalidated tariffs across more than 53 million import transactions. The update was filed as part of a lawsuit brought by California-based Freestyle World, which is seeking class-action status on behalf of small businesses that say they have encountered obstacles in obtaining their refunds.

Trump seeks new tariffs as states push back

Last month, Trump imposed a new round of tariffs on more than 80 countries to replace a 10% global tariff that was set to expire. The new duties range from 10% to 12.5% for countries including the United Kingdom, Mexico, Canada, Australia, India, China, and the 27 member states of the European Union. The latest tariffs were imposed under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which targets countries accused of benefiting from forced labor.

This week, however, a coalition of 25 U.S. states sued the Trump administration over the new tariffs, calling them “a pretext to replace the import taxes that the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in February.”

The states have asked the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) to block the tariffs, declare them unlawful, and order refunds of duties already paid. According to the lawsuit, the tariffs imposed on 59 countries and the European Union cover 99.4% of all U.S. imports. Trump administration officials, however, argue that those countries have failed to do enough to prevent goods produced with forced labor from entering U.S. supply chains.

Who will get the refunds?

Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in February, questions emerged over whether consumers would benefit from the tariff refunds. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued that the refunds would primarily benefit businesses rather than consumers.

Several studies suggest that the cost of the tariffs was largely borne by U.S. importers and consumers, who faced higher prices announced by companies such as Walmart, Nike, and Abercrombie & Fitch.

Some companies have chosen to pass part of the recovered funds on to customers. Amazon, for example, said it will automatically issue refunds to customers in certain cases, while FedEx and UPS have announced similar plans. Nintendo, by contrast, has stated that it will not compensate consumers who paid higher prices for the Switch 2 console, arguing that the purchase price reflected the value of the product received.